Covenants Made, Tow Trucks Fines Paid

Don't worry I didn't get towed. But an elder in our district did. Pray for him. 

Hello all my friends and the happiest Monday to you all! This week has been absolutely awesome!!! 

We had a baptismal service for our friend Kudi! She was a friend of the Nigerian man named Martins who we baptized last month. She is super awesome and has acted in faith significantly. I remember teaching her the word of wisdom and we talked about coffee and tea and she asked, "Why would I have to give up coffee and tea? They are not bad for me?" As much as we tried to explain that they could be addictive substances she still didn't understand how something as simple as coffee and tea could be bad for her.

Finally we explained the Sacrifice and how God will ask us to sacrifice worldly things we love so we can have a greater abundance of his spirit and blessings in our lives. After hearing this she said, "I have sacrificed for God, and I will always sacrifice for him." She gave up coffee and tea instantly. She works all night and now has the Lord provide the energy that she needs. I love the faith that she has shown me and the faith of these awesome people that we've been able to teach! Elder Bodily was able to baptize her and I was able to confirm her in church the next day. 

Something else super awesome, the family that my last companion Elder Van Tassell and I baptized 2 months ago had a son that just turned 8. Polycarb was able to be baptized by his father Steve Abiola. It was an absolutely amazing thing to see a recent convert, newly ordained to the office of a priest, baptize his young son. This is what the gathering of Israel looks like! It made me so happy. Also I'm pumped because they used to live in our area which is super sketch and lots of people get shot but they were able to move to Hyde Park where the sisters are and it's so much nicer. We've been able to see this with two of the families that my last companion and I were able to teach and baptize together so it's been really cool introducing them to the sisters and having them start to eat all the Nigerian food haha. 

After the baptism another recent convert named Ofure brought some Nigerian food for everyone to eat. President and Sister Shumway were there and sister Shumway got a plate and started talking to some people. Martins, our friend who roasted Elder Bodily for not eating his food began to roast Sister Shumway for not eating hers. "WHY MUST YOU CHAT!? THE FOOD IS THERE FOR YOU TO EAT! YOU MUST EAT IT!" Now this was an entertaining thing for me to see my mission president’s wife get roasted for not eating her Nigerian food, first my companion, now her, haha. 

On Sunday we were able to get Kudi confirmed, Martins was able to get the priesthood, and Darlene got her temple recommend and her patriarchal blessing recommend. It's been absolutely amazing to see these people I love grow and progress in their lives in the gospel. 

This week I was able to go on exchanges to South Shore with Elder Osorio who is a straight homie and an amazing District leader. He's the best and we had a pretty awesome time. We played basketball with the other elders the next morning to switch back, which was sick. 

This week for some reason we've been struggling to find the Nigerian people, we had nobody come to church this week except for Kudi, and she's now a member. We're going to have to hit the hard reset. A little discouraged, but nevertheless a little excited to find some more solid people, my companion and I went with our excited finding attitudes and found a guy who let us in his house to teach him. The dude ended up being super high. He was like "Hold up, what was I even doing before you two got here?" Since he was holding the Book of Mormon in his hands we were able to convince him that he was actually reading the scriptures before we met with him. He believed us and probably began highly reading the Book of Mormon after we left haha.

As we were leaving he was like "When are y’all coming back?" We were like, “We are not sure, what do you think? He pulled out his wrist with no watch on it and looked at it and was like "Howbout 6:00?" So that was pretty cool haha. We saw him later that night walking around and we were like "Jamal where you going?!" And he said in a very legendary way "The liquor store. Jesus turned water into wine, I'm finna turn this paper into some beer." Probably the funniest thing I've ever heard on the Sabbath day. 

So we continue to teach and this week we will have a lot of finding to do as we're kinda doing a slight reset on our teaching pool. It's going to be an awesome time finding in the hood! Hope everyone has an amazing week! 

Elder Jensen 

Green Fire Testimony

Last week for Pday we went downtown, which was legit, and played some gnarly mini golf with the boys. Also we got some super sick pics so stay tuned. 

This week we had transfers and Elder Bodily and I were so grateful to stay together that we planned like 4 lessons on Tuesday morning and then Mr. Vehicle coordinator said we had to chauffeur 2 missionaries and our whole schedule got slightly roasted but it's OK because ONE MORE TRANSFER!!!

This week was actually super awesome. The first week we have had in a long time that hasn't had any meetings, so it was a nice full busy and effective week. I'm very grateful. 

Probably one of the coolest things I've been able to see this week was my companion bear powerful testimony. We were teaching this guy, it was a 4th lesson and we were preparing to drop him because every time we met with him he would ask the same question about Joseph Smith saying God was a man and why do Mormons think that they are God's etc. You all know the concern. For like the 50th he had brought it up, and we told him it doesn't matter if Joseph Smith wasn't even a prophet, and if the Book of Mormon is not true. Elder Bodily asked if he had read the Book of Mormon and prayed and this certain person had refused. I studied the concern and try to help him understand but nothing was working.

Elder Bodily finally threw down a savage testimony where he knew of the divinity of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smiths prophetic calling. He was even quoting scriptures and even said to this guy "it pains my soul that you'll harden your heart against what we're teaching you" (but it sounded more like what Alma said to the city of Ammonihah) and he was, throwing down! It was so powerful and he told him that we couldn't teach him anymore if he would refuse to read the Book of Mormon and simply ask God if it is true. Holy smokes. After the lesson we told him we loved him but he's simply not doing what we've asked him to do and we dropped him. The spirit had confirmed to me that it was the right thing to do. I've had plenty of drop lessons with people, but this one was really powerful. One of the most rewarding things I've seen on my mission was right then as a trainer, seeing a young missionary who has the most powerful testimony. He'll be a powerful teacher and leader to those in Chicago.

Other than that it was the usual. Ate Nigerian food, taught the Nigerian brothers and sisters and also the homies in the hood. It's a blast and I can't imagine it any better, coming home at night with a crappy haircut, torn pants sewn back together by our recent convert friend, exhausted every day. And I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. The missionary life is a legendary one.

Everybody pray for our friend Kudi this week, she's a Nigerian woman we've been teaching who is a friend of Martins the man who was baptized last transfer. She'll be preparing for baptism this weekend. 

Hope everyone has an amazing week!

Elder Jensen 

General Authorities in Chicago!

It was ANOTHER great week on the Southside! Pretty basic week, helping people stop smoking and trying to teach them why it's important to keep hookers out of their houses, and that self control and the scriptures are a greater defense than a Louisville slugger to "the demons of the world." (The hookers) boy oh boy do we meet some interesting people haha. Had 11 people confirm for church and 2 show up! People must be afraid of the rain is what we have discovered. Either that or they don't understand the DOCTRINE. So WE WILL TEACH THEM!

We actually had a great opportunity this week to have Elder S. Gifford Nielsen who is a 70 and another 70 named Elder McCune who came to do a mission tour. They had the MLC gather together in Naperville (so we had another MLC.) so for the part of the day where it wasn't MLC I went to Chicago 2nd ward for the day with Elder Vargas the other zone leader. It is a Spanish area and my boy is from Spain so he's a pro... Me not so much. We went finding and I told him I'd try it so that I could have a taste of what a Spanish greenie feels like, and I'm pretty sure I figured out how to say "Hello. I am a missionary." That's all I got. So that's what I did! “Hello, I am a missionary.” Bam. Give them a card and then turn to the comp who actually speaks the language haha. But MLC that day was pretty awesome. We talked a lot about how to help the mission move forward and it was super inspiring.

Our mission tour the next day consisted of 3 zones gathering together to hear the general authorities speak. Personally I like zone conferences better because it's more interactive, but this meeting was super awesome too. We were all able to learn a lot and it was amazing being able to see the homies from the other zones and especially being able to talk to the sisters who are currently serving in one of my old areas and hearing about people Elder Jensen and I used to teach and how they were baptized. Super awesome!

That night our ward had a huge event at the church and they wanted to help of all the missionaries. It was a back to school carnival and Elder Bodily and I were on BOUNCE HOUSE DUTY!!! It was super sick. Definitely you already know I took advantage of that. Bounce houses are my thing. If the kids wouldn't get off you could just get on and scream and they'd all go nuts haha and jump off. From that night the ward mission leader gathered us together and told us that 30 families requested that missionaries come and visit them. Next month we'll be having a huge Halloween party and apparently last year they had like 4000 people show up and got like 400 referrals. It's going to be INSANE! Chicago is a great place to tap into the power of ward events.

We had the transfer calls last night and we will both be staying in HYDE PARK!  The whole district is almost changing except for us and all the people who just finished training will now be training again. It's going to be crazy. There's only me and one other missionary in the district who are older so that's kinda weird! Lots of new friends coming in! That's about it for this week! Hope everyone is doing amazing! 

International Baptisms

These have been a wild past two weeks! Sorry for the lack of email last week we had to switch Pday to Thursday and I figured it would be easy to just do a double letter for this week! 

We had Zone Conference, President Shumway is the man! Talked a lot about member missionary work it was Flippin sick. Also Elder Vargas and I threw down an obedience training which was pretty rad if I do say so myself! Or I guess you could say it didn't end up in a complete disaster. 

After the Elder Bodily's first Zone Conference he was so pumped to go to work and we went to Martins's house right after in which Kudi (Martins's roommate) offered us some food a little hesitantly because he said “no thanks” last time. This time he was so hyped that he was like "yes I'd love to try some food!" and she said, "You are not strong enough to have amala and ocra. You will have rice and beans and stew." So I was able to eat the amala (which is called chocolate fufu. It doesn't really taste like chocolate sadly; it's just a darker color.) It was gnarly, lots of fish, tough chicken, and spicy soup. AND I POUNDED IT.

Elder Bodily was still not able to finish the food and he's such a softie! It was really spicy and he was taking a sip of water after every bite. Martins in his booming Nigerian accent said "BODILY. YOU CANNOT EAT LIKE THAT!" and took the water bottle away. Every time Elder Bodily tried to speak he was cut off by: "Bodily. Eat your food." He checked his phone and martins took it away haha. It was so funny. In the end he wasn't able to finish and Martins said "Look at Jensen! He ate all of his food! He is the champion! He will sleep so well tonight!" Poor dude keeps getting roasted. Martins made sure to post the whole ordeal of his white friends eating his food on Facebook haha. 

I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Butler this week and he's a homie! We tried to clear up the whole day so we could go on a finding blitz in Englewood and the very first contact was in a mid-drug deal. We tried to introduce how to be spiritually high rather than physically, he wasn't exactly interested. But it was a sick day walking the streets finding the elect. 

We had MLC and it was really good, Elder Vargas (the other ZL with me) and I went to Naperville and we left our companions to stay in Englewood for the day, and they had to ride bikes -- two greenies on bikes in the hood. It was so awesome and they had a SICK day. So it was pretty legendary!

Since we had a Pday switch we went with that same companionship and hung out together on Thursday because they were the only ones who had Pday that day, so we decided to do something a little different and hit up China Town. Chicago is like the coolest place. In one neighborhood it’s like straight up only African Americans (where we are), in one neighborhood it’s all Hispanic people, and in one neighborhood it's all Chinese people and Chinese places. IT WAS SO COOL! I was telling Elder Vargas that it would be interesting to go tracting in China Town and he said "Yeah let's try it!" He goes to the very first door he sees and with a puffed out chest he knocks it. Lady answers who is definitely from China. "Hey, we’re missionaries...” The usual...   "Uhhh... No English."

Elder Vargas stands there for like a solid 10 seconds thinking of something to say because usually when they say that he starts going off in Spanish. "So what language do you speak?" 

"Mandarin." ".... OK we'll uh, have a nice day I guess!" Well this is why my boy from Spain was called to speak Spanish haha. 

The rest of the week wasn't really too crazy, we got to go on exchanges with the AP’s and I went with Elder Weinmuller and we've officially been on 3 exchanges together now so he's an ultra homie. It was super awesome. The AP's are always the best examples and they help me know what I can improve on so it was an awesome exchange.

Something super awesome, this week I noticed on the upcoming baptisms that my old area Hebron was having 2! Eric and Carri! I was able to call them on Saturday and talk to them before they got baptized. It was way cool! It was a little less than I year ago when my companion, Elder Buckway, and I knocked on their door! This is the first baptism I've seen from knocking doors in my mission! It really does work and there are those out there!

Also this Nigerian lady named Omolara, who is a member, called our number a few weeks ago and was like "my whole family is in Nigeria and they need to get baptized before September 10th and I need your help!" I literally had no idea how to help so I called Elder Bell and he showed me how to do it and we got all their info and sent it to the referral center and hoped for the best. She had me call the missionaries in Lagos Nigeria about the situation and I couldn't understand a word they were saying over the phone because they were both Nigerian missionaries and it was an international call so it was super fuzzy. Hoping the point went through we went on with our week and she came to us yesterday and told us her whole family was baptized this last weekend. So Elder Bell and I did some of that international missionary work! It was pretty awesome haha.

Well, that about summarizes these last two weeks. Sorry not a whole lot of details but it's been pretty crazy. Hope you all have an amazing week and count your blessings!

Elder Jensen